


a lane to the land of the dead

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (if you have my goggles), Aftermath of Torture, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Gen, Loki Has Issues, Nightmares, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Slash, Steve Needs a Hug, Thor: The Dark World Compliant, in the sense that all canon events happen the same anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 09:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11272284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: Steve's not alone in his dreams.





	a lane to the land of the dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lena7142](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena7142/gifts).



> This is a gift for [Lena](http://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com) on the occasion of her birthday, so first of all you should totally go wish her a happy birthday. She's wonderful and deserves all kinds of lovely things. 
> 
> This fic ended up straying a little off my usual path, partly in order to keep the thing self-contained (because several of my initial ideas would have, uh, exploded into epics, and I wanted to have something finished). I had fun, though. Really I should write more things with characters mucking around in each others' heads, it's way too much fun. There's so much potential when you're writing about peoples' dreams. 
> 
> A note: there's some horror imagery in here, though it remains (imo) fairly mild. Title, if you were wondering, comes from "As I Walked Out One Evening" by W.H. Auden.
> 
> Thanks to my ever wonderful beta for a quick turnaround, enabling me to actually post this _on time._ And happy birthday to one of my favorite people in fandom.

> _If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,  
>  To die were surely sweeter than to live,  
>  _ _Though there be nothing new beneath the sun._
> 
> \- “Monna Innominata” by Christina Rosetti

The dream started out like most of Steve’s nightmares - he was stuck in the cockpit of the plane as it was filling with water, freezing cold water, and he knew it was futile but he couldn’t stop struggling. Peggy kept saying _just let go, let go_ but he just couldn’t tell her that if he did, something terrible was going to happen. He didn’t know what but he knew it would be _bad_ , and if he could just get out then he’d be able to stop it.

He blinked and Loki was sitting next to him. He turned to look at Steve and frowned, seeming confused. Steve went still; something about that seemed wrong.

One of the windows cracked. In a second it would give way, and then it would be over.

“What are you doing here?” Loki asked.

Steve woke up very suddenly, in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling. After several long seconds of trying to slow his breathing, he got up, put on his sweats, and went for a run.

* * *

Washington, D.C. wasn’t a bad city, at least in terms of everything but the weather. Steve could live with the weather, though. Natasha was in town relatively often - often enough that Steve sometimes wondered if she’d been told to keep an eye on him. Even with her occasional company, though, and missions for SHIELD, and trying to catch up on everything he’d missed…

Well, Steve was coping. He figured that had to be good enough. Dreams were just dreams, and he wasn’t about to start taking any pills - _sleep aids_ \- to knock himself out. Though, he thought dryly, he wouldn’t have said no to a little more _variety._ You’d think there were only so many times you could dream about drowning.

The drowning dreams were better than the alternative, though - the alternative, where he was reaching for Bucky’s hand and missed, again and again, or stumbled on his broken body half buried in snow, saying _I followed you, Steve, I trusted you._

He was staring at Bucky’s body, the wind howling in his face, when Loki walked out of the snow. Steve looked up at him and wanted to snarl, didn’t understand why he should be here. He _shouldn’t_ be here.

“You again,” Loki said. He sounded surprised.

“Go away,” Steve said.

Loki blinked. He looked strange, Steve realized. Wraithlike. “You are telling me?” He said. “Where would I go? I belong here.”

Steve realized, suddenly, that Bucky’s body had vanished. “No,” he said, “no, no, what did you do-”

“Nothing,” Loki said. “Or everything, depending on how you look at it.” The wind howled, and he looked over his shoulder, expression flickering with fear. “They’ve found me,” he said, but he sounded less frightened than resigned.

“What?” Steve said. Something seemed to - slip, jarring sideways, and the wind was suddenly a great deal stronger, blasting him in the face. He could see something moving through the driving snow.

“There’s no use in running,” Loki said, turning his back. Something horrible reared out of the snow and Steve stumbled back-

-and fell out of the dream, his heart racing. He lay very still, thoughts whirling. Something hadn’t felt _right._ Not quite. And why would Loki be appearing in his dreams _now?_

He knew looking for logic in nightmares was futile, but he spent the rest of the night twisting it around in his head anyway. And not sleeping.

* * *

Steve returned to his apartment at 4 a.m. from a mission and fell into bed, exhausted.

He opened his eyes on a rocky, shattered landscape and stumbled forward, confused. Some part of him thought _this is a dream,_ and he expected the thought to wake him up, but it didn’t. He kept walking, though he didn’t really know why. The air felt dead, stagnant, like nothing had breathed here for years.

He heard a sound off to his right and turned. There was a small hollow in the ground and he moved over to it; someone was curled into a ball at the bottom. He could hear them saying something and leaned down to listen.

“ _Not here not here not here not here,_ ” Loki’s voice was saying. Steve’s whole body froze. He felt a sudden, cold certainty.

_This isn’t yours._

_Wake up,_ he thought, but didn’t. A flash of mingled anger and terror closed his throat. “What are you doing,” he demanded. Loki fell silent.

He twisted, scrambling to his feet. Loki stared at Steve, wild-eyed. “No,” he said, bizarrely. “That’s _cheating._ You can’t - you _can’t_ be here.”

“Here _where,_ ” Steve demanded. “What are you doing to me?”

“Get out,” Loki snarled. “Get out _get out-_ ” And there was a knife in one of his hands, flashing for Steve’s face. He flung up his arm and it hit his shield, and fell. Steve lowered his arm, staring at the shield he hadn’t been holding a second ago. Loki’s jaw spasmed and he stared at Steve like he’d never seen him before.

“I don’t understand,” he said after a long second.

“Why are you - are you in my _head?_ ” Steve demanded, thinking of Agent Barton, of brainwashing, but Loki stumbled back.

“In yours?” He said. “You’re in _mine._ ”

The ground groaned under Steve’s feet as they stared at each other, and Loki went pale. “Wait,” Steve said, but then the earth opened up and he was falling into deep, dark water, Red Skull laughing at him as he froze.

* * *

Once, Steve might have dismissed, or even twice, as the effect of whatever was screwed up in his head and the weirdness of dreams. But some weird was too weird to explain away, and the tone in Loki’s voice - _you’re in mine -_ seemed to suggest...what? Some kind of _mental link_ with Loki? That was, frankly, a terrifying prospect. Steve knew he should tell someone - Natasha, or better yet Fury - but the thought of trying to explain made him cringe.

They’d probably just think he was crazy. Maybe he _was_ crazy. Maybe it wouldn’t happen again.

He fell asleep on the couch watching a documentary about whales and was drowning again, and this time there were hands clawing at every window, all the dead and he could hear them screaming, begging him to save them.

“This is yours,” Loki said, and Steve jerked around to see him sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, staring out the glass. He leaned forward and pressed his hand to it. “You were here before.”

Steve screwed his eyes closed and willed Loki away, his stomach clenching and twisting. Knowing he was really _here -_ made him feel violated, exposed. He opened his eyes and Loki was still there, now looking at him.

“Leave,” he said through gritted teeth. Loki just looked at him, expressionless. “What do you want?” He demanded, louder. “Why are you here-”

“I have no idea.” Loki raised his eyebrows, smiled crookedly. “You think I chose this?”

“Yes,” Steve said. Loki’s lips twisted.

“You have a very high opinion of my interest in you.”

Steve couldn’t help but feel a little insulted. Loki turned away from him. The window cracked and Steve tensed, but Loki pressed a hand to it and it held. “I did not,” Loki said. “In point of fact I have no idea why this is happening. It is nothing to do with magic, as I cannot extend mine beyond the walls of my cell.” He sounded almost absent, like he wasn’t talking to Steve so much as thinking out loud.

_My cell._ Steve wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it still surprised him, oddly, to hear Loki say that so...calmly. He caught a glimpse of a face in the water that he almost knew, and flinched, looking away. “On Asgard,” he said, to distract himself.

“Yes,” Loki said. “Safely buried in an oubliette. The All-Father’s mercy is great, may he reign forever.” There was briefly a bitter note to his voice. Steve frowned.

“That doesn’t seem like such a big deal.”

Loki’s eyebrows flicked up. “You were entombed in ice for seventy years, unconscious. I am to be buried in stone for three thousand, alone and mercilessly aware. You will forgive me for disagreeing.” Steve blinked. His instinctive response was _it’s not the same,_ but of course it wasn’t. Still, it did sound fairly bleak.

“Why here?” Loki asked. “Why keep coming here?”

Steve jerked, his shoulders and jaw clenching. “What do you mean, _why,_ ” he said harshly. “It’s not like I have a _choice._ ”

Loki cocked his head. “You can’t control your dreams?”

“And you can?” Steve demanded. “Then why were you - wherever you were? _Not here,_ you kept saying, but _you_ didn’t leave.”

Loki snarled like an animal and pulled his hand away from the cracked glass. It exploded inward, the water rushing in to engulf them both, and the hands of the dead grabbed onto Steve’s ankles to drag him down.

* * *

“You look like shit,” Natasha said, when he got into her car. It was flashy. Steve had asked about that once - _shouldn’t you be trying to blend in?_ \- and Natasha had just grinned and said _hey, I have to indulge sometimes._

Steve grunted without looking at her, staring straight ahead. He’d been sleeping lightly, restlessly, but he hadn’t had any more - _visitations,_ either. Probably not a great trade-off, and not exactly sustainable, but he could deal.

“Articulate,” Natasha said. Steve gave her a tired look, and she just looked back at him.

For a half a second, Steve tried to imagine telling her, trying to explain, but his throat closed up. He wondered wildly if Loki was making it that way, so that he couldn’t tell, but he was pretty sure it was only his own cowardice. “It’s not a problem,” he said stubbornly. Natasha looked like she wanted to roll her eyes.

“Of course it isn’t,” she said, but she left it alone.

Exhaustion from dealing with an entire ship of smugglers who turned out to have almost thirty underfed refugees in the hold was apparently enough to get past Steve’s resolve to stay awake, though. He crashed fast and hard, and not into his dream.

He was standing in a courtyard full of jeering people, and right in front of him some kind of cage. He moved toward it, trying to brace himself for anything, but what he found still managed to surprise him. Huddled toward the back was a person, blue-skinned, their back mostly facing the crowd. He felt a surge of horror and reached for the lock, tugging at it.

“It won’t break,” said a familiar voice. Steve went still. He supposed he should have expected that, but... _why are you blue,_ was the first question he wanted to ask, but that seemed rude.

A moment later it registered that thinking about whether asking Loki that question was _rude_ might be a little absurd. Still, he didn’t ask.

“I thought you could shape dreams,” Steve said, maybe a little snippily. Loki said nothing. A piece of rotten fruit flew through the bars and splatted against his shoulder. Loki didn’t flinch, just dropped his head forward a little further.

Steve closed his eyes and tried to will the crowd away, but once again it didn’t work. He tugged on the lock, shifted his grip and yanked.

He was a little surprised when it gave, the metal screeching as it broke. Loki seemed surprised, too, and like that the crowd melted away, leaving just the two of them.

Loki turned slowly. Steve moved away, and finally asked, “why are you blue?”

Loki made a kind of choking sound and sank back, putting his face in his hands. Steve realized that he was laughing, though there was something a little mad about it. “Thor must have told you I am not of his blood,” he said after a moment. “My...usual appearance is a mask. The truth is...this.” He looked up, bright red eyes meeting Steve’s. He jerked back in surprise, and Loki smiled mirthlessly. “Monstrous, isn’t it?”

There was a whole minefield there that Steve didn’t want to touch. “Okay,” he said slowly. “So you’re...from another planet.”

“A realm of monsters, yes.” Loki leaned against the bars of the cage, not moving to stand or get out. It was like he didn’t realize the door was open. “It turns out that blood always runs true.”

Steve shook his head vehemently. “You can’t blame who you are on blood. You made choices-”

“Did I?” Loki’s red eyes half closed. “Yes, I suppose I did. But what drives those choices, what makes me the thing that I am...it explained so much. This is what I always was. I only did not understand _why._ ”

“That’s not true,” Steve said. Loki’s eyes snapped open.

“You would know,” he said, caustically. “You were there, of course. You know my life.” He snorted. “Such surety.”

That set Steve back, but only for a moment. “I know it’s not who someone is that makes them a monster,” he said. “It’s what they do.”

“Ah, yes,” Loki said, his lips quirking. “But it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?” He cocked his head a fraction to the side. “Tell me. Had it been up to you, would you have killed me?”

Steve blinked. “No,” he said.

“The correct answer is yes,” Loki said. “It would have been kinder. And certainly deserved.” Steve jerked, but Loki didn’t seem to be done. “I think I figured out what ties us together. I have been thinking about it, in my spare time.” There was something ironic in those last two words.

“What,” Steve said, after a moment.

“The Tesseract,” Loki said. “We have both touched it. You not as directly, but close enough. Such magic acts in strange ways.”

A rock dropped in the pit of his stomach. “That _thing,_ ” he said. “It should’ve stayed lost. Shouldn’t have ever been found.”

Loki laughed, oddly. “You will wish that even more, before the end.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”

A thin smile barely touched Loki’s lips. “I can hardly tell all my secrets.”

Steve eyed Loki, not sure what he ought to make of that. Tempted to say _you could tell some of them._ “What do you want from me?” Steve demanded. Loki’s smile faded.

“I didn’t choose this,” he said. “But I cannot say I do not appreciate the company.”

Steve almost gaped at him. “The _company._ ”

Loki half smiled. “Desperation makes strange bedfellows. In solitude, my mind gnaws at itself. You may be an invader in my dreams, but at least you are one I can talk to.”

Steve leaned back, staring at him. “You’re really...locked up in solitary. For life.”

Loki shrugged one shoulder. “Frigga visits when she can.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. Loki could be lying. Of course. And he had done terrible things. But if he was telling the truth…

Well, maybe it made sense he’d welcome even conversation with an enemy.

“That doesn’t exactly argue against you doing this on purpose,” Steve said, finally. Loki barked a harsh laugh.

“If this was intentional,” he said, “do you think I would choose to show you _this?_ My weaknesses laid bare to your perusal?”

“You said you can control your dreams,” Steve said again. Loki hesitated, just a fraction of a second.

“I can,” he said. “But there are limits.”

“Like what?” Steve pressed, but Loki just looked at him with eerie red eyes and said nothing.

Oddly, Steve woke up feeling more refreshed than he had in months. Maybe because it wasn’t _his_ nightmare, he thought dryly, and felt a strange pang of guilt.

* * *

Steve dreamed that Natasha was desperately trying to tell him something, but she was speaking in Russian and he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. One of those therapists he was supposed to be seeing would probably tell him that meant something - that he wasn’t _communicating_ enough, maybe - but as far as Steve was concerned it was just weird, and stressful, and entirely Loki-free. He woke up almost surprised.

In fact, his dreams for almost a week were Loki-free, and extraordinarily unpleasant. He was averaging maybe four hours a night.

He ran early morning circles around the Washington Mall a lot, and watched an unreasonable amount of Star Trek. He kept thinking that Bucky would’ve liked this, and that hurt, so he kept watching. He was pretty sure he liked it better than Star Wars, which Natasha seemed to find personally insulting.

Steve caught himself wondering, once or twice, if something had happened.

Whatever it was, he told himself, it was a good thing it was over.

* * *

Steve was standing in an empty cemetery after dark. _James Buchanan Barnes,_ he knew the headstone in front of him would say, and he should have brought flowers but there weren’t any.

There were gravestones all around him, Steve realized. An endless field of them. He moved forward, unwillingly. _Timothy Dugan. James Montgomery Falsworth. Jim Morita. Jacques Dernier._ He stopped, looking down at _Peggy Carter._

_She’s not dead,_ Steve thought, and the poisonous whisper back: _yet._ He swallowed hard.

_All of these,_ the thought whispered across his mind. _So many dead. What good were you in the end?_

His feet dragged onward, almost against his will. An obelisk loomed out of the ground in front of him, pointing at the sky like an accusing finger. Engraved on the bone-white marble was a shield with a star in the center. The earth in front of it was fresh.

The ground heaved. Steve jerked back as something started to crawl out of the grave, a hand grabbing his ankle before he could get out of reach. “You should be dead,” it hissed, and Steve cried out, recognizing his own ravaged face. “Come down with me where you belong.”

He was being pulled, slowly but surely, sinking into the soft, loose dirt. “Don’t fight it. Give in. You want to.”

A hand caught his wrist, and then his arm. “Not today,” said a familiar voice, and pulled. For a moment Steve thought he was going to snap between two forces, but then the hold on his ankle released and he fell back. Somehow, Loki managed to twist out of the way before Steve fell on him. Steve gasped for breath, staring up at him, but Loki was looking at the obelisk.

“Interesting,” was all he said.

Steve could feel himself starting to shiver. “What…”

“You are more able to interpret your dreams than I,” Loki said, turning slowly, scanning the headstones with no feeling on his face.

Steve felt sick. He bent forward, still breathing hard, hating this, hating that Loki was seeing him like this. “You pulled me out,” he said, finally. “Like you stopped the window from breaking. How? Could I-”

“Perhaps,” Loki said. “It takes an effort of will. But I suspect you have that.”

“So why can’t you fix yours?” Steve asked again. Loki glanced at him briefly.

“Fix?” He said, with a twist of a smile. “What is there to fix?”

Steve pushed himself to his feet, refusing to stay on the ground. He needed to stay strong. Stand tall.

He wanted to sit down and curl into fetal position.

“Where were you,” he said, to change the subject.

“Not sleeping,” Loki said simply. Steve eyed him.

“For a week?”

Loki shrugged. “I have gone longer. Besides, I doubt you can judge.”

Steve managed not to flinch. He didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so he settled for saying nothing. Loki was studying him again, like Steve was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. Steve hunted for another question, hoping to distract him. “If I want to control my dreams, how do I do it?”

“Start by entering a magically induced trance,” Loki said. Steve gave him a hard stare, and Loki shrugged. “I do not know how it would work for you.”

“Helpful,” Steve said flatly.

“A trait I am known for.” Loki turned away from him, looking again at the graves. “A touch obsessed with death, aren’t you?” Steve stiffened, and Loki flicked his fingers. “Don’t get offended. It was not judgment. Merely...commentary.”

“I’m sure it was,” Steve said. “And you’re just my friendly neighborhood alien.”

Loki barked a laugh. “How very droll of you to say so.” His expression settled into something strange, turning back toward Steve. “No...it isn’t death in general that holds your mind. It is your own. And its aversion.”

_How do you know anything about it,_ Steve wanted to demand, but - right. Agent Barton. “That’s none of your business,” he growled.

“Probably not,” Loki agreed. “But it is interesting. So disappointing, isn’t it, when things don’t work out according to plan?”

“You would know,” Steve said, not kindly. Loki’s lips twisted again in a crooked smile.

“You have no idea.” He looked down at the freshly disturbed earth. “Should I have let you pull yourself under?”

A part of Steve wanted to ask _what would have happened then_ but he kept his mouth shut. Loki shook his head slightly. “What is it _you_ want, Captain?”

Steve blinked. “ _I_ want?”

“I told you. Share and share alike.”

_I don’t know._ “From...this, you mean? From you? Nothing.”

Loki chuckled. “More generally, then.”

“That’s none of your business,” he repeated.

Loki eyed Steve for a long moment, then inclined his chin. “Fair enough,” he said, and Steve blinked, startled.

“You’re not…”

“Going to insist? No. What would be the point? It is not as though I can manipulate you with it, even if it were something I could offer, which I doubt.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “You’re not...what I’d expect,” he said slowly.

“And what were you expecting?” Loki asked. “A monster? A raving madman? You would have one out of two correct, and the other probably in progress.” His smile was sharp. Steve shook his head, but he didn’t have a good answer, really. He wasn’t actively fighting Loki, now - maybe that was the difference. But it wasn’t just that. Some of the sharp edges seemed...dulled. That was undoubtedly a good thing, but it seemed to have happened startlingly fast.

“It isn’t important,” he said finally. Loki raised his eyebrows.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “you are not what I would have expected, either. But I noticed that the first time we met.”

“Pardon?” Steve said blankly, because mostly what he remembered about that was Loki trying to beat his head in and threatening an old man.

“You were described as a soldier,” Loki said, “but you fight like a dancer. You don’t rely on force alone. It was...revealing.”

Steve’s skin crawled, but at the same time it was...he’d never really thought about it, but he supposed it was true. Still, it was disconcerting to hear it from Loki, of all people. “You make something of that?”

“I do.”

“Are you gonna share?”

“No.”

Steve glared at Loki, but it didn’t seem to affect him. Loki just regarded him, expression pensive.

“You are far more wounded than you want anyone to know,” Loki said. Steve jerked again, stiffening.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he snapped. Loki’s lips twisted up at one corner.

“You are standing in a field of graves, Captain. It is not exactly subtle.”

Steve felt a flare of hot anger and shame in his chest. “Why can’t you change your dreams?” He asked again. “Is it because deep down you don’t want to? Because you know you deserve it?”

Loki’s eyes widened and Steve knew he’d struck home. “You don’t,” Loki started to say, and vanished mid-sentence.

The shock woke Steve, too. Or maybe that was the thunderstorm raging outside, and for a second he thought _Thor,_ but it was only summer in Washington D.C.

* * *

Steve was standing on that shattered, pitted stone again, surrounded by black emptiness so profound it made him dizzy to look at. He wondered where this was, if it was a real place or just some kind of nightmare landscape.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t _his_ nightmare landscape, but Loki wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Steve walked, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, at least not until stairs suddenly appeared in front of his feet, leading down into the yawning mouth of a cavern.

Steve walked down the stairs after a moment of hesitation. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he didn’t. Could he wander around Loki’s dreams without ending up with Loki eventually?

Several stairs down, he could hear ragged breathing, strained and uneven. He almost tripped, hitting the end of the stairs, and rounded a corner.

Loki looked barely conscious. Some kind of rope bound his arms over his head and to the ceiling, his head hanging forward and feet barely touching the floor. His back was to him and it looked like a series of symbols had been cut into his skin, though they meant nothing to Steve.

He moved forward and around in front of Loki slowly, examining the rope to see if he could get him loose somehow. It glistened strangely, and he stretched up, trying to reach-

Steve recoiled, suddenly realizing what the ‘rope’ was. He took a deep, harsh breath and held it to keep back the urge to vomit. He must have made some sound, though, because Loki jerked and inhaled sharply. “Tell me,” he rasped. “Tell me if this is real. I need to. I need to know if this is…”

“It’s a dream,” Steve said quickly, but Loki went rigid, instead of seeming relieved, and then moaned quietly. “No,” he said. “No, not you.”

“Uh,” Steve said, but he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “I can’t, um, reach. To get you down.”

Loki’s head came up, slightly. “What?” He said, blankly. Steve stared at him.

“I’m not tall enough,” he said.

Loki stared at him like he’d never seen Steve before. He was trembling slightly, Steve realized. “Oh,” he said. “It is you.” Steve blinked, confused, but Loki slumped, though he was still breathing hard and irregularly. “That’s...fine. Take whatever satisfaction you like, absolved from mercy as you are.” Loki laughed, though it sounded hollow. Steve swallowed hard.

“I don’t,” he said. “Take satisfaction. What...what _is_ this?”

Loki’s head bobbed forward and to the side like he was drunk. “Dark...dark dreams of a perverted mind. Nothing more.”

Steve wanted to believe that. “You’re lying.”

“Every sword needs tempering,” Loki said after a moment. There was a barely healed wound low on his stomach and Steve’s eyes kept getting pulled back to it.

“What does _that_ mean,” he said roughly.

“Nothing,” Loki said, his voice ragged. “Nothing.”

“You can end this,” Steve said. “So do it. This isn’t-” _Necessary,_ he wanted to say, but the words died in his throat when Loki looked at him, unsmiling.

“You should know better than most,” Loki said, “some things never end.”

“Then at least for _me,_ ” Steve said. “If I have to be here-” He tried to concentrate, but nothing changed. Helpless. Useless. _Like always._

It shouldn’t matter. Of course it mattered.

Loki’s eyes drifted mostly closed. “You cannot die,” he said. “That is your curse. And mine. We live and keep living, beyond endurance, beyond reason.”

Steve’s stomach clenched. _I’m not like you,_ he wanted to say, but choked on it. Loki wasn’t wrong, not exactly. He’d always been a survivor, through sickness after sickness as a kid, and apparently he’d never lost the knack of it. Loki, though…

“What do you mean,” he said.

“What I said,” Loki said. He sounded spent. “I fell into the Void and didn’t die. I was shaped by a mad god and didn’t die. I attacked your Realm, was defeated, and survived. The Allfather condemned me to life. Beyond reason.” He made a hacking, coughing sort of noise that might have been a laugh. “You see.”

Steve stared at him. “No,” he said. “I don’t. What mad god? What do you mean, fell into the Void?”

“Does it matter?” Loki asked. “It all ends here.”

After a long moment, Steve sat down, trying to get comfortable. As comfortable as he could. “You asked if this was real,” he said. “Does that mean you didn’t know it was a dream?”

“Reality is a slippery thing.” Loki shifted, then froze with a smothered gasp. “For a moment I thought...you were someone else. A memory. A ghost.”

“A ghost of what?” Steve asked. Loki shook his head, his lips pressed together. Steve could hear his short, sharp inhales through his nose and felt a wave of frustration. “Is there anything I can do to _help?_ ”

Loki stared at him like Steve was speaking another language.

“Or could you stop this?” He asked. “If you wanted to? Because if nothing else then if I’m going to be stuck here-”

The grotesque bindings holding Loki up snapped, and Loki dropped heavily to his knees. He pitched forward, only just catching himself on his still bound hands. Steve jerked forward and then stopped. Loki’s bloody back heaved and Steve gradually bent down and reached for his hands, gritting his teeth as he tried to free them without thinking too hard.

“Was that you?” He asked. Loki shook his head without looking up.

“No,” he said. “It just means it’s starting over again.”

“What is?” Steve asked, and felt the ground shiver.

“Wake up,” Loki said, sounding almost desperate. “Wake up _wake up-_ ”

Steve shot upright in his bed. His phone was ringing and he turned his head to stare at it, still confused, disoriented. He could almost feel the texture of the bindings - Loki’s _entrails_ \- on his skin.

He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Natasha said. “How do you feel about a trip to Estonia?”

“Great,” Steve said, rubbing his eyes. “Just great.”

* * *

The mission in Estonia went sideways. Innocents died.

Innocents always died.

His dreams weren’t exactly a break.

The mountains. The train. The explosion. His hand stretching out, reaching, and Steve knew, he _knew_ he wasn’t going to make it. Bucky would still fall, again. Steve would still fail, again, and stand there frozen when he should have leaped after him-

_And who would stop Red Skull then? Don’t you know you always have to be the one to sacrifice everything?_

Another hand plunged down next to his, made that extra inch, grabbed hold of Bucky’s wrist and pulled him up. Steve was only frozen for a second before he reached to help, hauling him over the edge, away from the edge, _safe._

Steve’s heart was racing. He held on too tightly, his head spinning, not bothering to look and see to whom the hand belonged. He already knew.

Bucky stared over the edge, his eyes wide. “God, Steve,” he said. “That was close. I’d have been…” He laughed, shakily. Steve heard himself make a noise in his throat and dragged Bucky into a hug and for a moment he felt warm, solid, real, and he could almost imagine…

He turned his head and saw Loki sitting back against the side of the car, watching with his face blank of expression. Steve didn’t let go of Bucky, held onto him like it would change anything.

“Why did you do that?” He asked. Loki shrugged.

“Why not?” He gestured at Bucky. “Your friend. It’s his loss that haunts you, isn’t it? Underneath all the others. That you reached for him, and could not save him.”

Bucky’s head felt heavy on Steve’s shoulder. There was a lump in Steve’s throat, but no anger, to his surprise. “Maybe,” he said, finally. Loki nodded, slightly.

“I suppose that’s why,” he said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Steve said. Loki’s expression flickered, and for a moment the mask fell away and there was - _something_ underneath, pain, hurt.

“No,” Loki said at length. “It doesn’t, does it?”

Steve looked down at Bucky, unnaturally still. Not real. Almost real enough. He looked down. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

“With this?”

“No,” Steve said. “With you. Something’s changed.”

Loki’s face was expressionless once again. “The All-Mother,” he said, and stopped. “Frigga. My mother is dead. Killed.” He let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “At least they thought to tell me.”

Steve remembered how it had felt when his ma had died. He’d known it was coming. It hadn’t hurt any less. In some ways it still did hurt, however long it’d been. And _murdered..._ he spared a thought for Thor, what he must be going through. “I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.

“Don’t waste your apologies,” Loki said, but not angrily.

_What,_ Steve wanted to ask, or _who,_ but he didn’t think either question would fit, right now.

“I told him which way to go,” Loki said. It didn’t sound like a confession, just a dull statement of fact. “Her murderer. He walked by me and I thought...I didn’t think he would reach her. Didn’t think.” Loki’s eyes were glazed, staring at something very far away. Steve opened his mouth and closed it, not sure how he was feeling. It _did_ sound like it was Loki’s fault. But at the same time- “I ask for nothing,” Loki said. “I just needed to...tell someone.”

Steve wished...he actually wished there was something to say. Something meaningful. But there wasn’t any meaning to be made, he thought: not out of Bucky’s death and not out of Frigga’s. Just the hurt and the memories. _Beyond endurance, beyond reason._

“I am sorry,” Loki said quietly, “for your loss.”

He winked out of existence, and Steve woke up, staring at the ceiling, his body feeling oddly heavy.

He got up and went for coffee down the street. Stared at the address for the home where Peggy was for the umpteenth time. Went for a run that did nothing to settle him.

Routine could be comforting. It could also leave you numb.

* * *

Days turned into weeks and Steve’s dreams stayed normal. Or normal for him, at least, though now sometimes the nightmare with the train had a different ending.

He couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.

Steve figured at first that Loki was just avoiding sleeping like he had before. Maybe out of shame, maybe out of something else. As time went on and the silence continued, though, he had to wonder.

Had something changed? Had something _happened?_

He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind. Work kept him busy - mostly. He finished the original _Star Trek_ series and started on _The Next Generation,_ and everything promptly imploded in his face.

Bucky was alive. He kept fixating on that, even knowing there were a thousand other things that he needed to think about. Alive, found, and lost again.

In the aftermath, though, there was HYDRA to deal with, and the recovery of everything (powerful, dangerous) they’d slipped out under SHIELD’s nose, including the scepter Loki had used during the invasion.

“I thought that thing was gone,” Clint said, looking a little sick.

“Should’ve figured SHIELD would want their grubby hands on it,” Tony said. Steve glanced at Thor and noticed a strange tension on his face, a strained expression.

“Is something wrong?” He asked. Thor glanced at him.

“Nothing,” he said. “Merely thinking that I should have ensured that weapon was returned to Asgard with the Tesseract.”

“Probably,” Natasha agreed. Steve frowned, though, and waited until the meeting finished to approach Thor.

“I wanted to ask,” he said slowly. “What happened with Loki? Is he…” Steve wasn’t sure how he meant to finish that sentence. Thor’s expression tightened around his eyes.

“He died,” Thor said, after a long pause. “Fighting at my side against Malekith.”

For a moment Steve just blinked, shocked. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally. The expression on Thor’s face was faintly surprised, like he hadn’t expected that, and Steve wondered if that was why he hadn’t said anything.

It must have happened shortly after that last dream, Steve realized. That was why...whatever the connection between them had been, it had been severed with Loki’s death. _We live, and keep living...that is your curse, and mine._

“Thank you,” Thor said at length. “I hear that...you seek your lost friend. I hope that you find him soon.” He moved past Steve and away, and Steve stared at the wall, an odd feeling in his chest. Not sadness, exactly. Maybe regret.

* * *

Steve dreamed he was standing in a dark, empty hall, the pillars broken, the golden walls blackened from fire. There was a throne looming at the end of the hall and Steve moved toward it, slowly, confused. Halfway there he realized there was someone sitting on it, slumped over. A prickle of unease ran down his spine and Steve quickened his pace.

“I have done as you wish,” echoed a voice from ahead of him, harsh and gravelly. “Asgard is broken. Let it be done.”

Steve lurched forward a step. “Asgard is broken?” He said, a strange shiver crawling down his spine.

“What? You are not…” The figure raised its head slowly, and Steve’s eyes widened in recognition. So did Loki’s. He jerked upright, brought up short by chains that linked his arms to the throne.

“Loki?” Steve said blankly.

The look in Loki’s eyes flashed from bleak despair to fury in a second. “No,” he said. “Not again. _Never_ again.”

“Wait,” Steve said. “Thor said you were dead. What’s going on? Is this-”

“Get out,” Loki snarled. “ _You will not remember this._ ”

A door slammed closed. Steve woke up, his head pounding, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, the aftertaste of a bad dream. For a second, he groped after the details, almost within reach.

Then it was gone.


End file.
